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In the Future Everything Will Be A Coffee Shop

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Re: In the Future Everything Will Be A Coffee Shop

#31

Post by philwelch »

onemoreact wrote: post #17
tpatke wrote: post #2

tl;dr - I shop a lot on Amazon. Therefore we no longer need shops. We have the internet. Therefore we no longer need universities. The nice thing about "in the future" kind of statements is that they are impossible to disprove - especially when it is not specified how far in the future we are talking about. However, I think we are a long way from having gasoline delivered to your door and I always need to pop out for…

I spent last year living next door to the mall. I went there for food, clothing, and some candles and that's about it. I live 1 block from a Best Buy and still buy all my electronics online, and I am happy to replace the local bookstore which died with my kindle. Thanksgiving was the last time I went into a grocery store (Peapod). Gas is just about the only thing I can't buy online and buying an electric car is becom…

The malls aren't for you, they're for people--predominately women--who shop recreationally.

Re: In the Future Everything Will Be A Coffee Shop

#33

Post by yummyfajitas »

khafra wrote: post #16
ctdonath wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Promise free food, and suddenly way more people are demanding it than the economy can support. Even if the economy can afford to give away food, society stagnates because there is no incentive to produce nor advance anything of value - be it making widgets, sweeping floors, or writing sonnets. Those who do produce the wealth unproductive others live on will decide to not bother (look up "go Galt"). We Americans are o…

> Those who do produce the wealth unproductive others live on will decide to not bother (look up "go Galt"). Has this ever happened? Has anyone at any wealth level ever simply stopped making money because he was upset about taxes? I hear a lot of small-time sole proprieters talk about it, but I've never heard reliable reports of it actually happening.

Has anyone at any wealth level ever simply stopped making money because he was upset about taxes?

Yes, it happened to Ronald Reagan. When the top tax rate was 90% (he was an actor at the time), he chose to make only two movies/year. He saw little point in making more movies since he wouldn't get paid for it.

http://toomuchonline.org/the-tax-that-turned-ronald-reagan-r...

Re: In the Future Everything Will Be A Coffee Shop

#34

Post by rbarooah »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #28
batista wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the problem of what will you do with the millions of people working in retail economy, and with the assorted collapsed buying ability of the middle to lower class. We don't just keep jobs because we need them. We also keep them because we need the distribution of wealth that they make possible --without a way to ensure that, everything collapses. There can't be a billionaire without millions of wage slav…

There can't be a billionaire without millions of wage slaves Except for where there can. Economic productivity is nowhere close to decoupling from population mass yet, but when it does, you won't need low or semi-skilled workers. There is a careful calculus happening at every level comparing the productivity of a human versus machines (and other humans). To deny that competitive spirit, à la Greece or Italia, builds…

Do you know where there is any good analysis of the kinds of adaptations that might be possible to this new reality of productivity?

Re: In the Future Everything Will Be A Coffee Shop

#35

Post by rafd »

lnanek wrote: post #19

Just because he prefers to buy online doesn't mean other people do. Google tried to sell phones online and it just didn't work, for example...

It may be an issue of timing. Online shopping only took off in the last decade; the batch of consumers born after 1990 will have been exposed to internet shopping since childhood and will need much less convincing of buying anything online (than those who grew up used to buying things in stores).

Re: In the Future Everything Will Be A Coffee Shop

#36

Post by bayleo »

swalsh wrote: post #10

This whole scenario is kind of silly. I can understand the simplification in order to debate the merits of a free mass scale online education. However it's not realistic. No two candidates will ever be the same. Everyone has different levels of communication, most will think a little differently. If they're programmers, there's probably different levels of understanding of language concepts, or OOP concepts. In the s…

It's a gedankenexperiment and he's invoking ceteris paribus. It's no different than isolating the velocity of two balls rolling down a slope by opting to ignore things like friction & drag in a physics problem.

Re: In the Future Everything Will Be A Coffee Shop

#37

Post by cryptoz »

rsanchez1 wrote: post #32

People romanticize coffee shops too much.

Could you explain what you mean? I've done my best work in coffee shops, hands down. I've also had the most enjoyable time doing it. It's way nicer than a library or an office or a chair at home. When you have a collection of other caffinated people working near you on different projects, you are often more motivated to work yourself. The atmosphere is ambient and doesn't offer much distraction, unless you want it to.

I only get to spend about 3 or 4 hours / week in cafes these days (I have an office job) but those are some of the best work hours I get. I wish I could transition full-time to coffeeshops, and if I get a startup going I might try it.

Re: In the Future Everything Will Be A Coffee Shop

#38

Post by JumpCrisscross »

rbarooah wrote: post #34
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There can't be a billionaire without millions of wage slaves Except for where there can. Economic productivity is nowhere close to decoupling from population mass yet, but when it does, you won't need low or semi-skilled workers. There is a careful calculus happening at every level comparing the productivity of a human versus machines (and other humans). To deny that competitive spirit, à la Greece or Italia, builds…

Do you know where there is any good analysis of the kinds of adaptations that might be possible to this new reality of productivity?

It's funny, a Treasury paper from a 1994 conference in Canberra [1] looks like the oeuvre on the topic. Everything more recently has focused on rising productivity as a desired effect instead of an a priori cause.

The paper concludes that in the short-run, rising productivity decreases inflation, increases the current account balance, increases GDP, and increases unemployment (and real wages) as aggregate supply increases without a commensurate increase in aggregate demand. The system starts equilibrating as people internalise the higher productivity into their investment assumptions.

We could see falling rates on student loans coupled with rising returns on education (note: not just college education, as the OP pointed out) as increasing the incentive to invest in one's education. Given that our culture creates barriers to education the older one gets it seems like we will have a wasted generation of un-skilled workers who will just need to be worked through the system (being a cold, pragmatic macroeconomist here). Being civil to those people without incurring undue cost to the system will be the challenge.

[1] http://www.treasury.gov.au/documents/239/PDF/paper07.pdf

Re: In the Future Everything Will Be A Coffee Shop

#39

Post by batista »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #28
batista wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also the problem of what will you do with the millions of people working in retail economy, and with the assorted collapsed buying ability of the middle to lower class. We don't just keep jobs because we need them. We also keep them because we need the distribution of wealth that they make possible --without a way to ensure that, everything collapses. There can't be a billionaire without millions of wage slav…

There can't be a billionaire without millions of wage slaves Except for where there can. Economic productivity is nowhere close to decoupling from population mass yet, but when it does, you won't need low or semi-skilled workers. There is a careful calculus happening at every level comparing the productivity of a human versus machines (and other humans). To deny that competitive spirit, à la Greece or Italia, builds…

Except for where there can. Economic productivity is nowhere close to decoupling from population mass yet, but when it does, you won't need low or semi-skilled workers.

You don't need workers to have productivity, but you need people not being rich to have riches. And those people need to be fed, clothed, etc. And they also need money, to be able to buy things and services, else you cannot sell them.

So, you either turn into a Star Trek/socialism scheme, where social wealth is shared, and rich men are those that take more share by power alone --like kings of time old--, or you have a problem or keeping people occupied.

Re: In the Future Everything Will Be A Coffee Shop

#40

Post by ctdonath »

karamazov wrote: post #18
ctdonath wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Promise free food, and suddenly way more people are demanding it than the economy can support. Even if the economy can afford to give away food, society stagnates because there is no incentive to produce nor advance anything of value - be it making widgets, sweeping floors, or writing sonnets. Those who do produce the wealth unproductive others live on will decide to not bother (look up "go Galt"). We Americans are o…

"free food" doesn't necessarily mean a communist society where everything is free - it means providing an income level that allows for the necessities of life. It probably makes more sense to give those away than it does to force people to work meaningless jobs just so we feel they aren't getting something for "free" - if the jobs don't produce value, then the workers are getting something for free, they're just also…

It's amazing how many people will settle for a free "necessities of life" income. TV makes it very easy to waste time with satisfaction. Few will use the opportunity for creative productivity. Most will be freeloaders. Whatever the arguable percentages, it creates a drag on the productive by depriving them of the value of their work.
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